


oranges and other unusual ingredients

by verity



Series: on this night of all nights [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Judaism, Pesach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-16
Updated: 2011-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 00:33:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/171024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explaining the meat/dairy thing seemed pointless. Willow resigned herself to focusing on the essentials. "Where's the orange?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	oranges and other unusual ingredients

**Author's Note:**

  * For [igrockspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/gifts).



  


"This smells funny," Dawn said, making her grossed-out face. "Are we really going to eat this?" She held up the lamb shank, its plastic baggie pinched between thumb and forefinger, clearly trying to keep it as far away from her as possible. Willow didn't blame her: the lamb shank looked equally unhappy.

Spike shrugged and started rooting around in one of the other bags. "Red said lamb shank. There's a bunch of loin, too. Looked a bit more edible."

"Still, ewww."

"Didn't pay for it!"

"Hey!" Buffy objected from the next room.

"Spoils of war," Rona announced, carrying in a third bag of groceries. "It's about time we had some real food around here."

Willow decided that she wasn't getting involved in this one. She peered in the bag that Dawn had brought in and frowned in confusion. "Why is there cottage cheese? Did we need more cottage cheese?"

"I am going to make delicious noodle kugel!" Of course. Andrew. "Don't touch those cornflakes. I requisitioned them specially for this mission."

Explaining the meat/dairy thing seemed pointless. Willow resigned herself to focusing on the essentials. "Where's the orange?"

~

There was no orange.

Even though it was still mid-afternoon, and sunny outside, it was dark in the supermarket with all the lights out. Eerily quiet, too, with no one inside but her and Xander. She could hear the low hum of the refrigerators, the squeak of her sneakers against the linoleum. Xander had brought his backpack, but Willow had picked up a basket when they entered the store out of habit. She kept bumping into things with it as they made their way through the fruit and veggie section with flashlights. (And some stakes and holy water, just in case anybody or anything got ideas.)

"Clementines?" Xander called out.

Willow couldn't see him, just the trail of his flashlight. "No, it's an orange." How could there be raw horseradish here and no oranges? Was there some kind of demon she didn't know about, that only ate oranges? Had there been some kind of run on oranges as people were heading out of town? Were they a protective sy-

"Grapefruit?"

She sighed and abandoned her basket by the spoiled berries before making her way over to him. "It has to be an orange."

"We could improvise," Xander said, in his thinky-voice. "Sunny Delight. Those chocolate oranges that you get at Christmas. Sherbet? You like sherbet."

"We're using the platter that Buffy's mom used _for the Easter ham_. I want an orange."

Xander didn't say anything, and the soft drone of the refrigerators seemed awfully loud as the silence stretched out between them. There was a nearly untouched stand of watermelons in front of Willow. They looked bright and new on the outside, but she knew they'd already started to go bad within. She thought about how the splatter would taste, for a moment, and then she thought it was probably time to leave.

"It's stupid, I'm sorry," Willow said when Xander joined her outside, a few minutes later. "It's- my mom has this stupid fight with my aunt every year, and I don't even care, but-" She bit her lip.

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Well, just in case, I stocked up on Sunny D."

~

"I guess it wasn't meant to be," Kennedy told her, in a way that Willow was sure was meant to be consoling. They'd gotten into bed and turned out the lights half an hour ago. Normally, by this point, they were failing to go to bed at any kind of reasonable hour for another reason.

Willow sighed. "Look, [it's for women becoming rabbis or something](http://www.miriamscup.com/Heschel_orange.htm). It's like the cup for Miriam. It's important."

"Let's go back to the orange, and my brain can return to short-circuiting about the cup issue later," Kennedy asked. Willow could _hear_ her frowning. "What is up with your parents? Seriously?"

"Mom is a child psychologist," Willow said, cautiously. "She wanted me to grow up in an environment that encouraged me to thrive despite sexism and the other oppressive forces of modern society. Or something like that." She paused. "I've never brought anyone home before - not for a seder - not for anything."

"Not even..."

"No."

A streetlamp flickered outside. In the dim light, Willow still couldn't see Kennedy's face. Kennedy turned toward her, took her hand beneath the warm covers. "New traditions scary?"

"Kinda," Willow said. When she thought about it like that, it wasn't quite so upsetting anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> [paper texture](http://dioma.deviantart.com/art/Textures-Paper-58028330?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Aresources%2Ftextures%20paper&qo=9) is by [Dioma@DA](http://dioma.deviantart.com/)
> 
> &
> 
> [full kugel recipe at about.com](http://kosherfood.about.com/od/dairymaindishes/r/kugel_noodle_d.htm) (this one is tried, tested, and well-loved by my chosen fam!)


End file.
